"(I really cannot make up my mind to call you Barbe or Varvara). I
have waited in vain for you at the corner of the Boulevard. Come to
our rooms to-morrow at half-past one. That excellent husband of yours
is generally absorbed in his books at that time--we will sing over
again that song of your poet Pushkin which you taught me, 'Old
husband, cruel husband!' A thousand kisses to your dear little hands
and feet. I await you.

"ERNEST."

* * * * *

At first Lavretsky did not comprehend the meaning of what he had read.
He read it a second time--and his head swam, and the ground
swayed beneath his feet like the deck of a ship in a storm, and a
half-stifled sound issued from his lips, that was neither quite a cry
nor quite a sob.

He was utterly confounded. He had trusted his wife so blindly; the
possibility of deceit or of treachery on her part had never entered
into his mind. This Ernest, his wife's lover, was a pretty boy of
about three-and-twenty, with light hair, a turned-up nose, and a small
moustache--probably the most insignificant of all his acquaintances.

Several minutes passed; a half hour passed. Lavretsky still stood
there, clenching the fatal note in his hand, and gazing unmeaningly on
the floor. A sort of dark whirlwind seemed to sweep round him, pale
faces to glimmer through it.